Working to understand the complex connections between people, cities, and environments

Youth culture as throwaway culture

Ok, you’re not getting any real content today because I’m still trying to write a paper that doesn’t sound deranged (I’m failing) and so I haven’t any juice for higher thought.

HOWEVER.

I was in having my hair done yesterday (shut up) and I was looking at Star magazine (shut up; I was under the dryer and I’d finished my book) at their “Best and Worst Beach Bodies” issue. My God. If there is anything that will convince one that the US has become a decadent and decaying empire along the lines of ancient Rome circa Gratian, it’s Star magazine and this issue in particular. YUCK. Next time I am bringing the Journal of Urban Economics.

However, it’s the obvious, at least to me, connection between youth-obsessed celebrity culture and throwaway culture that got me. I mean, all the “best” bodies were sixteen year-old girls with Terry Hatcher thrown in, and the “worst” were any woman over the age of 25 with Richard Gere thrown in because he has a little bit of a tummy. WHAT? That guy looks better than just about everybody on the earth on their best day. And all of the supposed worst LOOKED FINE. If you have to take Photoshop and circle the supposed “fat” in white and then use an arrow to point at it, then maybe it’s not as obviously hideous as you want to make out. A bigger mix of misogyny and age-hate you couldn’t create if you tried.